Recipes, guides and kitchen know-how. Mostly useful, occasionally silly.
Meringue Recipe - Crisp Outside, Chewy Middle, No Weeping
Four egg whites, caster sugar added a spoonful at a time, a little cornflour and vinegar for a chewy middle, and a long slow bake. Plus what the peaks should look like and how to stop them weeping.
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- Prep20 min
- Bake1 hr 15
- Cool2 hrs+
- Makes8
Meringue is three ingredients and a lot of air.
Egg whites, sugar, and the quiet confidence of someone who has never had a meringue weep sticky syrup all over a baking tray.
I have. It was like watching a small, sweet cloud have a breakdown.
The good news is that almost every meringue disaster comes down to the same handful of mistakes. Avoid them and you get crisp, shiny shells with a soft, chewy, marshmallowy middle.
This is my meringue recipe for exactly that. It makes eight nests, it needs nothing fancier than a bowl and a whisk, and most of the "cooking" happens while you're asleep.
I also show you what the peaks should actually look like, because every recipe says it and no recipe shows you.
Is meringue really named after a Swiss town?
Maybe. Probably not. It's a great story either way.
The legend says a pastry chef called Gasparini invented it around 1600 in Meiringen, a village in the Swiss Alps, and named it after the place.
The documents that proved it were supposedly kept in a museum in Frankfurt. And then, conveniently, lost in the war. Which is the culinary equivalent of "the dog ate my homework".
What we do know is that the word first appears in print in 1692, in a cookbook by the French chef François Massialot. And that there are three classic types:
- French - sugar whisked into raw egg whites, then dried slowly in a low oven. That's what we're making.
- Italian - hot sugar syrup poured onto whipped whites. Glossy and stable, used on lemon tarts.
- Swiss - whites and sugar warmed together over a pan of hot water, then whisked. Firm and very smooth.
Meiringen still sells meringues with heaps of double cream. The Swiss have their priorities straight.
What you need
For 8 nests
- 4 large egg whites, about 140g, at room temperature. Not a speck of yolk.
- 250g caster sugar. Not granulated - the big crystals won't dissolve and you'll get gritty, weepy meringues.
- 2 tsp cornflour. This is what gives you the chewy middle.
- 1 tsp white wine vinegar. Helps the chew and keeps the whites stable. You won't taste it. Promise.
Kit
- A large, spotlessly clean glass or metal bowl. Not plastic - it holds on to grease.
- A balloon whisk or an electric hand whisk
- A big baking tray and baking paper
- Half a lemon, for wiping the bowl
Grease is the enemy. A tiny smear of butter or a fleck of yolk and the whites simply won't whip, however long you go at them. Wipe the bowl and whisk with a cut lemon before you start. It feels fussy. It saves you twenty minutes of sobbing into a bowl of froth.
How to make meringue
1. Whisk the whites
- Heat the oven to 120C (100C fan, gas ½) and line a big baking tray with baking paper.
- Put the egg whites in your clean bowl and start whisking slowly until they go foamy and bubbly, about a minute.
- Then go faster. If you're doing it by hand, use big looping strokes that lift the whisk up and out of the whites, not little circles round the bottom.
- Keep going until the whites hold stiff peaks - see below for what that means.
By hand with a balloon whisk, the whites themselves take about four or five minutes with proper lifting strokes. Stirring round in circles can take three times as long, so lift, don't stir.
Our balloon whisk with the built-in scraper is made for this. Lots of wires to pull air in, and a silicone edge to scrape every last bit off the side of the bowl when you're done.
Soft peaks vs stiff peaks
Lift the whisk out of the bowl and look at the peak it pulls up.
- Soft peaks: the whites cling to the whisk but the tip flops over on itself, like a tired quiff. Too early for meringue.
- Medium: the tip holds for a moment, then droops partway.
- Stiff: the peak stands straight up and stays there. The whites look thick and smooth.
- Over-whisked: it goes dry, grainy and starts to split. Stop before this.
The famous test: tip the bowl upside down over your head. If it's ready, nothing moves. If it isn't, you'll find out very quickly. Do this over the sink if you're the nervous type.
You'll see soft peaks in loads of baking - whipped cream, mousses, sponges - so it's worth learning the look once.
2. Add the sugar, slowly
- Now add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, whisking well after each spoonful.
- Keep whisking for a couple of minutes after the last spoonful, until the mixture is thick, white and very glossy.
- Rub a little between your finger and thumb. If it feels gritty, the sugar hasn't dissolved yet - keep whisking.
- Sprinkle over the cornflour, add the vinegar, and gently fold them in with a big spoon.
This is the bit most people rush. Dump the sugar in all at once and it can't dissolve, and later it leaks out as little beads of syrup. Slow sugar, happy meringue.
By hand, adding all the sugar takes about another ten minutes. That's your arm workout for the week sorted. An electric whisk does the whole lot in roughly five to eight minutes.
3. Shape the nests
- Put a tiny dab of meringue under each corner of the baking paper to stick it to the tray.
- Spoon the mixture into 8 rounds, about 8-9cm across, leaving space between them.
- Use the back of a spoon to press a shallow dip into the middle of each one. That's where the cream and fruit go.
4. Bake low and slow, then leave them alone
- Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, until they're crisp on the outside and lift easily off the paper.
- Turn the oven off and leave the meringue nests inside with the door shut until they're completely cold. A couple of hours at least - overnight is ideal.
- Don't open the door to check on them. I know. I know.
Cooling them slowly in the oven is what stops them cracking and keeps the middles chewy. Meringues hate surprises. Like cats. And me before a coffee.
How to serve them
Fill each nest with a big spoon of softly whipped double cream or thick Greek yoghurt, and pile fruit on top. Strawberries, raspberries and passion fruit are the classics.
Broken ones? Eton mess. Crush them up with cream and strawberries and nobody will ever know. It's been served at the Eton v Harrow cricket match for well over a century, and there's a record of it at a royal garden party in 1893.
Want one big showstopper instead? Spread the whole mix into a 20cm circle and bake it the same way for a pavlova. That's also the easiest pudding you'll ever make on Christmas Day - here's how to fit it into the big day's oven timetable.
And if you need a warm pudding for colder nights, there's always a proper crumble with custard.
Are raw egg whites safe? The meringues get baked, so they're fully cooked. For anything lighter, the NHS says hen eggs with the British Lion mark are fine raw or runny, even in pregnancy.
If it goes wrong
Whites won't whip? There's grease, water or a bit of yolk in there.
Fix: start again with a clean glass or metal bowl wiped with lemon, and separate the eggs one at a time into a cup first.
Weeping or beads of syrup? The meringue is crying. So are you.
Fix: the sugar went in too fast or didn't dissolve. Use caster sugar, add it a spoonful at a time and do the finger rub test before it goes in the oven.
Sticky and soft the next day?
Fix: sugar pulls water out of the air, so damp days and steamy kitchens are trouble. Dry them fully in the cooling oven and store them airtight as soon as they're cold.
Cracked all over?
Fix: they cooled too fast. Keep the door shut and let them cool in the switched-off oven. A few small cracks are fine - they're getting cream poured on them.
Flat and runny?
Fix: the whites weren't whisked enough before the sugar went in. Get them to the upside-down-bowl stage first, then add the sugar.
Want to make them ahead?
Fix: plain, unfilled nests keep for a few days in an airtight tin somewhere cool and dry. Only add the cream and fruit just before serving.
Once you've nailed these, you'll find yourself buying eggs just to use up the whites.
Then you'll need a recipe for eight yolks. That's a problem for another day.
Now go and cook something.
